May 21, 2010

Five Years later Ross executed, but issue continues to stir debate

This article brings up a very timely issue; The Ross Death Penalty case is a perfect example of Connecticut's judicial system's utter failure to do its job.
Michael Ross was a serial killer of women and children. He was also the most recent criminal to be executed by lethal injection in Connecticut.He wound up having to sue the state in order to be given his well-deserved sentence.

The answer lies not in getting rid of the death penalty, but rather to reform it; From The current built- in limitless appeals system renders it impotent to the
absurd time period between actual sentencing and the carrying out of that sentence, which currently has no bounderies in the state of Connecticut.

From a practical standpoint, this means that any murder case where the death penalty has been sentenced by Judge or Jury (and a sentence of death for aggravated murder is quite rarely pursued here in thefirst place ) often drags on for decades upon decades, as the sentenced inmate or lawyer, file what has become obligatory appeal after appeal, on the governments dime, simply "buying thier client time, pushing any actual execution to some far away future date,which for all intents and purposes does not exist-not in Connecticut.

While the largely democratic judiciary committee would use theseexamplesofour broken system as a reason to simply get rid of the entire system I, (myself a registered democratic) say nonsense-fix it. Iam appalled that our "lawmakers" first thought is to throw it out with yesterdays garbage because they are seduced by the notion that it will save the state lots of money- and/or because these samelegislators fancy themselves proggresive minded heroes of some sort because they subscribe to the armchair philosophy that the death penalty is archaic and morally wrong .

Lets face it; The cold hard facts are that a percentage of Connecticuts legislators who are ultimately responsible for the immense decision of whether to keep or abolish the death penalty in this state, have personally never encountered the unabashed evil of sociopathology (IE anti-social personality disorder AS READ IN THE DSM) and the destruction of lives left in its wake. Formerly refferredto as "psychopaths" this personality disorder has a high incidence in our prison systems and our violent criminals (albeit diagnosed or undiagnosed) There are also a good number of sociopaths who are of the higher functioning ilk meaning they may in fact commit crimes, including horribly brutal violent crimes, yet they are rarely caught and if caught rarely properly prosecuted, as 'manipulative natures and often above articulkate self educated intelligence combine to fool those in the system who lack the experience or insight to recognize what theyre dealing with.
This disorder does not mean crazy; They know right from wrong, they simply have no conscience, and believe they're victims deserve theyre fate for allowing themselves to be victimized.

But as in the case of joshua komisarjevsky co-defendent in the Petit family murders, many sociopaths may feign consciences as they realize it is expected of them. Read his sentencing transcript from his last string of bome break ins prior to the Petit Family assaults and murders. In front of the judge and prosecutor, he offered up to the court tremendous remorse for his 28 break ins and robberies-which were almost all perpetrated at night while the homeowners were in bed sleeping, by his own admission.Weve since learned that komisarjevsky boasted of these exploits reffering to those home invasions as a form of "extreme sport" exciting him only if someone was in the home at the time, otherwise he was too "bored" by the robbery the robberies in my opinion incidental to the act of subterfuge and invasion of anothers privacy and space.


Thus as our lawmakers would like to fancy themselves too "evolved" to support the notion of a state sponsered death penalty, even when reserved for only the absolute worst most brutal and aggravated of our states murder cases (Connecticut is reknown for its history of judiciuos use of pursuing its death penalty, with an extremely rare percentage of these cases compared to its overall murder cases) And thus our lawmakers lack of familiarity and awareness and education concerning the brand of criminal that would kill for thrill lust or simple greed without batting an eye, is really what is at the crux of the problem here. This Exremely important issue calls for the kind of awareness that transcends armchair philosophying and "bottomlines".

Michael Ross was apparently ready to accept accountability for the many kidnappings, rapes and murders that he'dcommitted over the ourse of his life (he alluded to only being caught and charged for a fraction of of the actual number of murders he was responsible for).
Connecticuts criminal-friendly justice system actually refused to allow this guy to plead guilty when wanted to, with the presiding judge citing whatever insane judicial rule that prohibits a guilty plea at that particular juncture. A situation not unlike the recent Petit murder case, where the first murder defendent being tried also wished to change his plea to guilty recently, as jury selection was just begginning - The New haven Superior court where the case is being tried, would not allow it-in fact they cite that technically they could not accept a guilty plea from a defendent in a Death penalty case.

As such the judge refused it and the plea stayed not guilty, as his lawyers had him plead originally. After much hullabaloo from those defense attorneys, who scrambled to tie thierclients hands once he admitted his guilt, they tried to have him declared incompetent among other things, in the end he was found competent to stand trial and assist in his own defense. although hayes was soon cajoled by his notorious anti-death penalty crusading public attorney to resort back to a sensible" Not Guilty Plea, at his next court appearence when the judge asked do you wish to keep your plea not guilty, there was a rather long pregnant pause from steven hayes before he finally said "no your honor'

Although every life is precious the murder of a child is doubly evil and tragic, and
yet... a good number of our Conn Legislators voted this past year to abolish the one thing that could serve as a deterrent to those that would prey upon children and others in defenseless situations. Had Governor Rell not vetoed the narrowly passed bill, the death penalty would be abolished in this state as we speak and replaced with a capital punishment that consists of life in prison with no parole.

With saving money the main reason cited by members of the Conn Judiciary committee for introducing the notion of abolishment-(ie due tothe costliness of its currently run amock
appeals process among other things) This makes the actual longer term results of abolishment most ironic: With no threat of A possible death sentence looming over a murderers head-and remember only the worst of the worst murder cases are even considered for the death penalty here--defense attorneys left and right will encourage thier clients charged with capital crimes to go to trial rather than plead to lowered charges, for they will then have "nothing to lose" by trying the case. ie the worst case would still be life with no parole vs the possibility that they "rollthe dice" so to speak and possibly get life sentence with the possibility of parole via a trial.

This influx of trials and the preparations involved on cases that have been traditionally plea bargained for years, will cost the state millions upon millions of dollars, thereby defeating the original rationale for abolishment not to mention putting the lives of innocent citizens at risk as would be murderers child predators, rapists have significantly less to be afraid of if they are caught for thier crimes

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